Show Notes
You need to put yourself out there! You may be great and have a lot of Value but if you’re not being seen, you can’t take advantage of that. Make connections, make yourself visible and your chances of success grow exponentially.
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Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] What does a cell phone reception connection in your elevation have in common?
[00:00:07] Wait. Listen to this podcast and you'll find out.
[00:00:30] Hey everyone, welcome to shifts and lighters. You know who it is. I am excited to bring to you this particular topic.
[00:00:38] And you know what's funny? I know I said it's like cell phones in your elevation.
[00:00:46] What is the common thing?
[00:00:49] It is connection.
[00:00:51] Yeah, it's connection. Your cell phone requires some kind of connection and your elevation requires some kind of connection. And honestly, you don't have. You need someone. Everyone needs somebody. You know, um, we, my family likes Bluey.
[00:01:11] I think every parent who has children loves Bluey themselves. I'm one of those. But when you're watching Blue, one of the episodes, well, was talking about how individuals these days have like, things don't just get to your table. Like there is, there's the, there's the farmer who planted the food. If you're doing like real food, planted the food, then they took it to get sterilized or whatever cleaned up. And then they put it in a box and then the driver drove it to the distribution center. The distribution center, put it in the box, so on and so forth. And it went to the grocery store. You go to the grocery store, you check out with the grocery store registrar, and then you bring it home to your table and you do what you need to do to it. So there's multiple people involved. Why? Because it requires a connection.
[00:02:07] Cell phones are useless if they have no connection.
[00:02:11] You need reception. If you're in the basement of a house and you don't have reception, it's meaningless. It's just a fun game to game toy or whatever you want to use it for. It is kind of just. It's useless. It's useless because there's no connection.
[00:02:30] And the best example of connection I can find is one I can find in the Bible.
[00:02:37] I talk about this often, but the Bible says if you believe in your heart, confess with your mouth and believe in your heart, the Lord Jesus, that God raised Jesus from the dead, that you shall be saved. That's what the Bible says. That's like the ultimate connection. Because once you have that connection, everything else comes online. Okay? It takes time, but it comes online. And there's a scripture in that I'm going to pull from today that actually speaks to this. In fact, it actually is probably one of the most, I wouldn't say misinterpreted, but maybe misunderstood scriptures because it's only told in part. So I'm gonna tell this first part so you have context for the second part, which we'll touch on in another podcast, but it's in Matthew. Excuse me. Luke, chapter 19.
[00:03:28] Luke, chapter 19 says, then Jesus entered and passed through Jericho. Now, behold, there was a man named Zacchaeus who was a chief tax collector, and he was rich, and he sought after. He sought to see Jesus, to see who Jesus was, but could not because of the crowd, for he was of short stature. So he ran ahead, climbed up a sycamore tree to see him, for he was going to pass that way. And when Jesus came to the place, he looked up and saw him and said to him, Zacchaeus, make haste and come down, for today I must stay at your house. So he made haste and came down and received him joyfully. But when they saw it, meaning there was some people that were following him, they all complained, saying, he has gone to be a guest with a man who is a sinner.
[00:04:21] Then Zacchaeus stood and said to the lord, look, lord, I have half of my goods. I'll give half my goods to the poor. And if I have taken anything from anyone by false accusation, I'll I restore fourfold. And Jesus said to him today, salvation has come to this house, because he is also a son of Abraham. For the son of man has come to seek and to save that which was lost. Okay, so there's a lot in there, and I'm just going to pull about maybe a couple things from this. Zacchaeus is, as the Bible says, as tax collector, and I'm going to tie all this here in a minute. Tax collectors weren't liked. I don't think anyone really likes to pay taxes. I, you know, everyone has to pay the Ir's Uncle Sam's gonna get theirs, but no one joyfully pays their money. On was the first Tuesday of the month.
[00:05:17] Whenever we pay taxes, whenever they do, no one likes to do that. Now, back in the day, they had a person who did it. Now best believe that's why they, they don't put faces on people that work for the IR's. Like they just send the, send the letterhead, no names. You know, I don't even know if they have LinkedIn profiles, but no one really likes them. And in this case, the people who were tax collectors, in his case was a jew.
[00:05:49] And because he was a jew, he was taking taxes for the roman empire which was under there. The roman empire was had Jerusalem under their jurisdiction. So not only that, is he a turncoat?
[00:06:06] Is he a tax man, but he's also a turncoat. So everyone hates him, and he was rich, which means he did some dirt, he overpaid some people, or he requested more money, so he ended up pocketing a lot of that. And so there's just a whole bunch of mess that goes along with Zack is. But the thing is, at the end of the day, he's short, so he may he what he made up in stature, he made up with money. Right? So now he hears that Jesus is going to be coming by that way, and because of the crowd, he couldn't see him. Right? So what is this thing about connection?
[00:06:45] Zacchaeus desired a connection with the ultimate individual, Jesus himself. So instead of following the crowd, he does something that's different than what everyone else does. Everyone follows the crowd.
[00:07:02] In this case, everyone follows the crowd. Now, the thing is, when you follow a crowd, there's a bunch of people in front of you.
[00:07:10] You know, I mean, it's not like you're going to burrow your way through. Plus, the guy is short, so he's gonna get pushed around.
[00:07:18] So because Zacchaeus desired a connection, the first thing he decides to do is he decides to get ahead of it. Okay? So getting ahead is actually important. Why? Because when you're ahead of schedule, there's no pressure.
[00:07:39] Think about when you're late, late to work, late on a project, when all the things come together right before you have to do it, there's a lot of pressure that happens. Now, if you plan ahead, there's usually less pressure, there's less congestion, there's less opportunity that you won't be able to pivot if something were to change. Right? So what Zacchaeus does is he goes ahead and then elevates himself because he knows that, because he is too short, he has to make himself visible somehow. So he gets ahead of Jesus and then takes himself higher. That sounds kind of like the name of this podcast. Shifts and ladders. He makes a shift to not go the typical route that everyone else is going or following each other, and then he decides to climb a tree to get visibility so that not only he can see Jesus, but Jesus can see him.
[00:08:43] Okay, now, what does that have to do with your growth?
[00:08:48] Everyone who wants to elevate and grow has to do both of those things. They have to look ahead, and the person that they want to see, or the person that they're trying to become can't see them. They need to elevate themselves to make themselves visible.
[00:09:08] Okay. It deter, it's, it takes a lot of determination to one get ahead of a situation. Which means he had a run.
[00:09:19] He had to run. He had to know the route. But he also had to climb a tree, which is not easy to do.
[00:09:27] I mean, some of y'all can climb trees. Well, some trees are just not easy to climb. And I don't think that's the first, I don't think that's the first thing people are trying to do to see Jesus. At this point, everyone's following everyone else. He's the only person I've heard or read in the Bible that climbed a tree to make sure he got noticed.
[00:09:51] He couldn't get the reception he needed because there was too many people around him.
[00:09:57] So just like when you're trying to get cell service in a basement or a place that has no reception, you make moves.
[00:10:07] You make moves to elevate yourself so that you can start getting bars.
[00:10:14] Yeah. So you have to make sure that you position yourself in such a way that it makes yourself visible. Now, it is something that is hard to do.
[00:10:29] I know it's not as easy as repositioning yourself and getting cell phone reception. I know that's like, that's like the easy thing.
[00:10:36] But what you have to do and must learn to do is you must learn to get ahead of where you are and elevate yourself into becoming something different.
[00:10:51] Now, this didn't fix Zacchaeus issue. He was still short, but he was short and in position now.
[00:11:01] And most of us don't want to do the hard work to get noticed.
[00:11:09] Maybe I should say that. Maybe I should say that better.
[00:11:14] We don't want to do the hard work of making ourselves visible. There we go. That's a better phrase.
[00:11:23] People do a lot to get noticed.
[00:11:26] You can just check social media, people do antics to get noticed.
[00:11:33] But making yourself visible is requiring effort, immense amount of effort on your part. So if you're trying to get cell phone reception, or if you're even trying to elevate your life, career, relationships, whatever it is, it requires some kind of connection, some intentionality, and some initiative and elevation to get you to that next spot. You know what?
[00:12:06] At the end of this pod, what we're going to do is, I'm going to let you know we're actually going to be getting back into interviews. I know you guys love hearing from me. I know you do. But what I think is having more conversations about shifts and ladders is actually more valuable than a teaching all the time. So in the next couple pods, you'll be hearing from some of my friends, some of my brothers, some of my sisters about some of the amazing things that God has done in their life. But also you get to hear some of these gems about shifts and ladders that they've had to go through and go to in order to become their best version of themselves. And again, that's whatever version they're on. They're on that journey. We're all making shifts and we're all elevating to new heights in ourselves, our relationships, in our professions, in all aspects. So keep it locked here.
[00:13:08] I'm really excited. Some of the conversations that we're going to have, and you catch the first one next week. I'm not going to tell you who it is. Um, but if you, if that, but if you are interested, and I know you will be, because we have great conversations here. Um, share this with your friends. Subscribe and you will, uh, hear some incredible conversations that I know will be of value to you. So keep it locked. Subscribe like this one, and we'll see you. And you'll be hearing from a whole bunch of other people about how God has made shifts and elevated them to what?
[00:13:56] Can we cut that part out?
[00:13:59] We'll catch you in the next one. Peace.
